Back to the topic at hand: the lone MLS game yesterday. Ben and I attended, and yeah, it was a thorough, well-deserved beat down by United at 4-1. The Galaxy backline looked like they would much rather be napping in the shade; it appeared as if United’s runs were beating them soundly at even half-speed. As Matt Bourque notes over at DCist, “I counted eight such instances during which a United attacker had the ball with only the keeper to beat.” It was a pretty sound whoopin’. David Beckham was marked well, and really, when he did get off a cross (and there were a couple of beauties) no one was even close to being on the end of them. For instance: Edison Buddle, when Becks is looking to pass, just run towards the net. Good things will happen.

Additionally, my firm dislike of Landon Donovan was cemented further. Will somebody tell this guy that only players that can hack it at the world class level can whine and complain like that? (See: Drogba, Didier and Ronaldo, Cristiano.) Donovan fully deserved his yellow card for dissent. And there’s no way Gallardo deserved anything more than a yellow for an incidental finger to the eye. A straight red there would have been a pretty terrible decision by the referee, who for all the heat and the national pressure, handled the game pretty well. There were a couple of incidents where I thought tackles were getting a bit too sloppy and players much too out of hand, but the game ended in relative calm. So kudos to the officials.

The argument could also be made that the MLS game was a much more exciting affair than the Euro final (as That’s On Point mentions) – but as we all know, that really has more to do with the sub par defensive quality in the American league than anything else.

Oh, yeah, and it was crazy, insane, ridiculously hot. So, about those seats at RFK – which are mostly metal, and haven’t been painted since 1864? It makes it really difficult to focus on the game when you’re worried about your ass, back, and thighs getting those griddle marks that you see on hamburgers in advertisements.